The comedy-caper “Ghanchakkar” forgoes Bollywood’s signature song-and-dance sequences but runs at signature length, almost two and a half hours. The movie fills the time usually allotted for musical interludes with plot and more plot, but also with character.

Sanjay (Emraan Hashmi) robs a bank with two bumbling accomplices. (They wear movie-star masks as disguises: the faces of Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Utpal Dutt beam at the security cameras.) The bumblers demand that Sanjay keep the cash safe for three months, after which they’ll split it up. But three months later, Sanjay can’t remember who his accomplices are or where he hid the money. He has amnesia — doctor-certified — not that anyone’s much inclined to believe him.

“Ghanchakkar,” directed by Raj Kumar Gupta, has little of the frantic air of the usual Hindi comedy, and its leisurely pace gives Mr. Hashmi, the “kiss king” of Bollywood, time to build a thoughtful, sometimes sly portrait of a man whose identity has been shattered. (There’s always a hint that he may be putting everyone on.) Trust becomes the issue, and it’s in short supply. Sanjay can’t trust his memory, and maybe not his wife, Neetu (Vidya Balan, who does share a steamy kiss or two with Mr. Hashmi), or a suddenly rich friend.

The script, written by Mr. Gupta with Parveez Sheikh, has some engaging mysteries and witty payoffs. But the story is stretched too thin, blunting some of its more interesting ideas. Still, Mr. Gupta delivers an ending that is anything but pat, pushing the film from comedy into something like tragedy. The final images of Mr. Hashmi and Ms. Balan in a grim fluorescent-lighted train car feel like a genuinely open-ended consideration of the movie’s themes of love and trust.